Becoming Nicole

“As a safety expert, he [Wayne] didn’t like surprises. He liked plans, analyzing a situation, and assessing all the risks and consequences. Now everything had to be rethought.” 

Wayne likes the comfort he derives from planning, analysis, and weighing positives and negatives. He dislikes the discomfort that tends to accompany change. He feels this discomfort when he discovers that he and Kelly are about to receive two sons, rather than one. He feels it even more acutely when one of these sons insists on being a daughter. And sometimes, no matter how much Wayne plans, analyzes, and weighs the costs and benefits, he cannot find an outcome that feels comfortable. He quickly comes to terms with having two babies by realizing that there will be twice as much joy, but resolution isn’t so fast and easy with Wyatt/Nicole’s transgender identity. Therefore, he is mired in discomfort for a very long time. 

“As she gazes at her image in a mirror beneath the waves, she feels comforted by the top half of her reflection. It’s the bottom that doesn’t make sense. Because she yearns to be a girl, a human female, she wants nothing more than to escape her mermaid’s tail, which is why, against her father’s wishes, she swims to the surface whenever she can to watch the humans aboard passing ships.” 

This quote is Nutt’s description of Ariel, the title character in The Little Mermaid and one of Wyatt’s favorite fairy-tale personalities. Wyatt and Ariel have lots in common, which may be one of the reasons he likes her so much. Like Wyatt, Ariel has a form of dysphoria that is intimately tied to her sense of who she is. Wyatt has boy body parts but wants to be 100-percent girl, and Ariel has some fish body parts but wants to be a 100-percent human. Wyatt wants to escape his penis, and Ariel wants to escape her tail. Each of them have some parts that don’t make sense to them and don’t seem to fit the identities they feel. They also share a yearning to be something else and express that yearning through activities they associate with the thing they want to be. Wyatt plays with Barbies and dresses in skirts and heels, while Ariel spends time at the site of a shipwreck, where she plays with objects that once belonged to humans. Plus, both Wyatt and Ariel betray their fathers’ wishes in these attempts to express themselves and explore who they desperately want to be.

“Nothing seemed to help Wayne make sense of Wyatt, not his small-town background, not his time in the military, and certainly not all that education.” 

Wayne’s usual tools for coping with change—his background, values, and formal education—don’t work when it comes to his son, who identifies as a female. He needs a different kind of educational experience, one he must open his heart and mind to before embarking upon it. Wayne also needs to admit that he has some blind spots, specifically that his typical ways of seeing the world aren’t enough to make sense of the fully reality he is experiencing. Then he must find new tools that help him locate these blind spots and see what he has been able to see. Though it takes quite some time, Wayne eventually accepts that he usual way of perceiving the world has some shortcomings and makes a genuine effort to evolve. He shares this acceptance with the public when he gives a speech opposing LD 1046, a bill that would limit transgender people’s rights in Maine. Seeing how much Nicole is suffering at school is a catalyst for this change, as is realizing that he doesn’t know everything and must keep learning to be a good father.

“Looking at Jonas, he saw himself, but also ‘not’ himself. The cognitive dissonance must have rankled.” 

As Wyatt grows older, his attachment to a female identity grows even stronger but he looks like a boy more than ever. Looking at his twin brother, a mirror image of himself, reminds Wyatt of this fact. It also reminds him how his brother can constantly express his gender identity in a way that feels natural and appropriate. Wyatt can’t do this as much as he’d like, in part because his parents tell him he can’t wear his most feminine clothing in public. This feels incredibly frustrating and unfair, and it makes Wyatt wonder if he will ever fully feel like himself. 

“Wyatt had never lacked chutzpah. He stood up for himself when he needed to. That was one thing Wayne admired about his son.”

Wyatt is a confident, extroverted child who knows how he feels about almost everything and doesn’t shy away from expressing and defending his opinions. According to Nutt, he is “[proud], outspoken, aggressive, and immature,” especially as he moves through elementary school (60). Wyatt also has a tendency toward verbal and physical confrontations. When an older, larger boy picks on him in a locker room, he doesn’t hesitate to get in his face. Wyatt also begins to test limits with his father as he gets older and bolder. One way he does this is by asking Wayne to buy him pink, sparkly clothing at the store. Though Wayne doesn’t want Wyatt to express his femininity so openly, he adores the child’s bravery and inclination to defend himself. These traits seem strong and masculine, and they align with Wayne’s old-fashioned beliefs about boys. Wayne, however, also sees how this chutzpah could lead to Wyatt getting hurt.

“Wayne […] wasn’t convinced Wyatt was transgender, or maybe he just wasn’t ready to accept it. In either case, Kelly knew she had to be the one to explain it to others, to be the go-between for Wyatt and those who didn’t, or couldn’t, understand what he was all about.” 

Because Wayne can’t accept that one of his sons is transgender, the burdens of protecting and parenting a struggling child fall squarely on Kelly’s shoulders. She is tasked with explaining to others who her son is, how he’s different from most other children, why he deserves respect and understanding, and what it means to be transgender. This includes explaining these things to Wayne. Kelly starts making certain decisions about Wyatt’s gender expression—for example, when he can wear certain types of feminine clothing—without Wayne’s input. Kelly is frustrated with her husband’s inability to understand Wyatt and grows increasingly certain about what is right for the child she soon perceives to be her daughter. 

“If there is no one place in the brain that provides a sense of self, then perhaps there’s no one place in the brain that provides us with a picture of that sense of self.” 

Nutt explains that a person’s sense of self is shaped by many biological mechanisms, chemical processes, and social interactions. It does not develop in isolation, and it is constantly changing. Parts of one’s identity can be aspirational as well. When Wyatt draws a self-portrait that shows a curvy girl with curly hair, eyeshadow, and jewelry, it doesn’t seem to reflect reality. This concerns his teacher, who takes the picture to the school counselor. When he is asked to redo the assignment and instructed to draw what he sees in the mirror, he produces a picture that looks more like the little boy he appears to be to others.

“[F]or a transgender person, every waking moment, every conscious breath, is a denial of who they truly are.” 

Nutt explains how gender dysphoria causes persistent distress for transgender people. When one’s body conflicts with one’s notion of being male or female, or one’s desire to be male or female, damage results. It can be hard to know what is real and true—especially what is real and true about oneself—when the mind and body seem to contradict each other. She adds that for many transgender people, there is only one way to fully resolve these feelings of alienation and mismatch, and the distress that comes with them. This involves making the body more closely reflect the gender identity that exists in the mind. This often means going through sex-reassignment surgery.

“The need to define ourselves as individuals is a peculiarly modern obsession.” 

Nutt argues that many of the boxes and labels used to classify groups of people became more rigid in the 19th century, as the population grew and moved to cities at an increasing rate. Before this, people likely thought about identity more collectively, and particularly in terms of family. Plus, many of the categories used to classify people in large groups may have had more flexible boundaries. Nutt adds that assigning people to rigid, stratified groups enabled rulers to keep their power. Categorizing and defining others in this way helped them control large populations and pit certain groups against each other when they might otherwise challenge the people in power.

“Wyatt was comfortable and he was popular, but in the fifth grade he’d have a new teacher and a few new peers, and both the family and the school wanted to make sure they were ‘safe’ people Wyatt could turn to if he needed them.” 

Wyatt’s comfort and popularity end in fifth grade, not long after he starts going by Nicole and using the girls’ bathroom. Kelly realizes early on that a transgender child is more likely to be the target of violence and bullying, so she goes to great lengths to ensure Wyatt’s safety. She starts by enrolling Wyatt and Jonas in tae kwon do lessons, but more is needed once the children reach fifth grade and frequent harassment upends their lives. Even before this happens, Kelly knows it’s important for Wyatt to feel safe and have people he can trust and turn to for help at school. She tries to establish a network of these people for him before fifth grade begins, in part by meeting with school staff and discussing her concerns. Kelly and Wayne also stress to their children the importance of being careful in regard to whom they trust. Wayne also tells Wyatt/Nicole that she will need to watch her back constantly, and that she should avoid going places alone. In other words, like it or not, safety must be a top priority for a boy who identifies as a girl. The family soon realizes, however, that safety is impossible to guarantee, even if they go to great lengths to ensure it.

“When he [the judge] walked in all they’d seen was his white hair and his age, and they did what most people do and what they themselves wished others wouldn’t do with Nicole: They made an assumption based on appearances.” 

When the Maineses must petition a judge to keep Nicole’s name change out of the newspapers, they worry that the elderly, white, male judge charged with this decision will not understand their daughter or why keeping the name change quiet is so important to her safety. When he makes a remark about the anti-LGBT Christian Civic League having a right to voice its opinions, Kelly is almost certain he will not grant the request. But the judge surprises her and the rest of the family by being sympathetic. When he hears Wayne and Kelly speak about Nicole, he realizes that they have her best interests at heart. The family realizes that they projected their own assumptions onto him because of his age, race, and gender, and how doing this is similar to how others assume things about Nicole because of the way she looks.

“This would be handled in-house, the way a team handled a problem player. That’s the way a former football coach and ex-athlete thought. He was strict and he was direct and you did what he told you to do, no questions asked.” 

Bob Lucy, the acting principal at the elementary school Nicole and Jonas attend, was a celebrated high school sports star and later a coach. As a result, he tends to frame his school experiences in terms of sports and coaching, even when this framing doesn’t fit the situation very well. His authoritarian tendencies cause tension with people like Kelly, who prefers and expects a much more collaborative approach. Plus, Lucy is stubborn and doesn’t adjust his approach even though it isn’t working very well. He tells Erhardt and other staff members to cease communication with the Maineses at a moment when they are very worried about their children’s safety at school. This severing of the lines of communication increases stress for nearly everyone involved and encourages Kelly to panic, not kowtow to Lucy’s demands.

“For whatever reason, this fight over the use of a bathroom by a nine-year-old girl felt personal [to Melanson]. It was as if his rights were being infringed upon every time his country invented new ones for special interest groups.” 

Nutt highlights how odd it is that a grandfather in his late 40s would choose to attack a young girl he has never met, especially over an issue as personal as bathroom use. She then dissects why he might see this behavior as defensible and even necessary. Like Wayne, Melanson is a military veteran, but Melanson has taken some different lessons away from the experience. Melanson feels that he has devoted years of his life to bringing American-style rights to oppressed people in other countries. Now that he is back on American soil, people in his own country seem to be fighting to take away his rights. The crux of the issue is why he sees the expansion of freedoms for others as the contraction of rights for himself. In other words, why does a transgender child using the bathroom of her choice feel like a loss of rights for a white, male adult like Melanson? He doesn’t seem to be losing anything, but he is being asked to broaden his definition of female and accept that other people are free to define themselves. So perhaps he is reacting to what he perceives as a loss of control. Melanson also doesn’t recognize that he too belongs to special interest groups. It’s just that the groups he belongs to—for instance, conservative white males—have had so much power for so long that he considers their status and control to be normal, deserved, and the way thing should be, no matter what.

“When Wayne looked in the mirror at himself he saw a man, a husband, a hunter, a fisherman. He saw a father. All of them were just names. They were categories. Wasn’t he more than a name or a category, just like Nicole? He was the sum of all the elements of his life. He wasn’t a category. He wasn’t even just Wayne. He was the story of Wayne. He was who he felt himself to be. It had taken him years, but he’d slowly come to realize the problem wasn’t Nicole, and it certainly wasn’t Kell. He had been the problem all along.” 

Wayne realizes that the categories he holds so dear do not define or represent his entire identity, and that the same must be true for Nicole. Hunting and fishing bring him joy and meaning, but he is also a dad, a husband, a son, an employee, and many other things. Nicole may be transgender, but she is many other things as well. Above all, she deserves love and a good father. Though Nicole is trying to assert her gender identity, she also needs help seeing herself as a whole person, something Wayne might be able to assist with.

In addition to recognizing some of the limits of labels, Wayne begins to see that how he presents himself—that is, how he tells his own story—influences how he sees the world and how others see him. He needs to adjust his personal story to include Nicole as she actually is, not as he wishes she would have been before getting to know her.

“Kelly’s problem was that she was always trying to figure things out—bad things, complicated things—before they happened, and that kind of anticipatory stress wore at her.” 

The Maines family’s fears for Nicole’s safety sometimes morphs into hypervigilance, which Nutt likens to “post-traumatic stress disorder, always expecting the worst” when a loud crash makes them wonder if Nicole has jumped off the roof (194). This type of worrying seems to affect Kelly the most. She tends to process feelings and draw conclusions internally, which can contribute to a spiral of anxiety about what might happen next. As a result, it’s often hard for her to live in the present moment. It’s also hard for her to relax and take care of herself.

“If there is no one test for gender, if it rests somewhere in that illimitable space between nature and nurture, then gender truly is less about biology and more about what we tell ourselves—and others—about who we are.” 

Nutt notes how groups such as the International Olympic Committee have stopped performing genetic tests on athletes because no single test can prove that a person is completely male or female. Plus, being male or female isn’t just a physical phenomenon: it’s also a state of mind. The processes that determine a person’s genitalia and his or her gender identity are separate and happen in different parts of the body. Gender identity develops in the brain and is shaped by a person’s interactions with the world, especially interactions with other people.

This quote appears after Nutt notes how some all-female colleges are struggling to decide whether people with female bodies who identify as males should be allowed to attend. This question gets even thornier when these transgender men undergo sex reassignment surgery while in college. Nutt’s discussion seems to point to the conclusion that college admissions officers and other decision-makers should make decisions based on what students and applicants feel is right for them. If a transgender person wants to attend an all-female college because he or she feels safer there, and even if the person has plans to transition to another sex, it should not be a deciding factor for a college, whose primary purpose is to provide an education.

“After more than a decade of marriage, [Wayne] and Kelly weren’t moving up in the world, they were moving down.” 

Wayne and Kelly feel that their life should be getting easier, or at least a little more comfortable, as they get older and their careers progress. But with Kelly and the kids needing to move to Portland for safety reasons, the Maineses find themselves with less money, comfort, and status. They have to rent a duplex in Portland and pay the mortgage on their Orono house until it sells. Wayne has to rent an apartment while the Orono house is for sale. Plus there are other expenses related to the kids and the lawsuit against the Orono School District. What’s more, the family lacks social status after making the move. They know few people in Portland, unlike in Orono. They also make a conscious decision to live in “stealth mode,” revealing Nicole’s transgender status only to a few teachers and administrators at the middle school. This means they can’t be very open about their lives when trying to make friends. The lack of freedom proves to be stifling, and it makes life even harder for Kelly, Nicole, and Jonas.

“It was hard not to feel both intimidated and terrified, and all the twins wanted to do was blend into the background.” 

Nicole and Jonas never get comfortable at their new middle school in Portland. The day they arrive, they notice how unhappy and disengaged the other students seem. Plus, the student body is much bigger and more diverse than what they have encountered in the past. Being part of a clique is necessary for survival in this environment, but other students don’t seem to want to get to know the Maines children. As a result, Nicole and Jonas feel scared and lost. They do their best not to stand out for fear of becoming the targets of harassment, but this is especially difficult for Nicole, who generally enjoys being the center of attention.

“It wasn’t even just their story anymore. The lawsuit, even though it was just a state case, had meaning and significance for many others. And now Wayne, Kelly, Nicole, and Jonas would carry the hopes of those others with them as they sought affirmation from the courts.” 

When the Maineses see the kindness and dedication of their legal team from GLAD, they begin to realize that their case against the Orono School District has importance that reaches beyond their own lives. It takes some time for the Maineses to be comfortable enough to share their story publicly, though, in part because they worry about losing their safety and privacy. They decide to take the leap when state legislators begin debating LD 1046, a bill that could curb transgender people’s rights. Wayne makes a speech to the legislators, revealing that he has a 13-year-old transgender daughter who has opened his mind and his heart. The Maineses feel so strongly about LD 1046 that they are willing to risk the negative consequences that come with putting their story—and themselves—in the public eye. They also realize that their story has the kind of appeal that can change people’s minds about transgender issues, so they decide to use it to help others.

“All that hiding and the secrecy, the lying and the shame—it was corrosive. The Maineses probably knew that better than most. Wayne hoped a time would come soon that all four of them could stand up and declare themselves. But until then, they’d continue living undercover.” 

Keeping Nicole’s transgender identity a secret while living in Portland, Maine is painful and difficult for the Maineses. Openness has helped them connect with others and form relationships in the past, so they feel isolated and stuck when forced to keep an important part of their lives under wraps. The family can’t stand the thought of having to move for a second time, though, or the thought of being bullied and harassed once again. Therefore, they decide to keep living with a big secret, despite the tolls it takes on their mental health, social lives, and overall sense of well-being. As Nutt explains, Nicole has essentially been forced to live in the closet after living outside it. And the rest of the family is trapped in the closet with her, a situation that isn’t healthy for any of them.

“Being a girl wasn’t just something she was in isolation and at home. It was who she was with others all the time.” 

Nicole always feels like a girl, so when she is forced to do things that call this identity into question, she tends to feel angry, sad, or frustrated. This includes things such as using a different bathroom than her girlfriends use and avoiding girlhood traditions such as sleepovers because they might make one of her Portland classmates realize she is living in a boy’s body. When Nicole can’t be with other girls and experience the kinds of things that they experience as a normal part of growing up, it highlights the difference between her body and her gender identity. This leads to anxiety and nervous behaviors such as pulling her eyebrows. It also makes her feel like a freak and an outsider who will never truly be accepted for who she is.

“He loved the language, he loved moving an audience, but above all he loved the storytelling, immersing himself in a role. It was, in some ways, the best kind of therapy for a kid whose biggest role in life so far had been being someone else’s brother.” 

This quote illuminates how theater helps Jonas cope with his frustrations about being the twin brother to someone who receives a lot of attention. Because Nicole’s struggle takes up so much of the family’s time and energy, Jonas sometimes feels marginalized. When Nicole’s plight becomes the subject of a court case and numerous national news stories, Jonas feels even more like a minor player in his own life. Theater lets him try on other roles and define the experiences he portrays. He can be the star, and in doing so, it helps him better understand what it’s like to be in the spotlight. Other types of roles help him see the value that comes from the characters who don’t grab the spotlight as much but make important contributions to the story.

“Before Nicole could express herself, before she was able to claim her own identity, Kelly had to do it for her. Wayne liked to say that the most important thing parents can do is make sure they have confidence in themselves. Only then can they give their children what they need without fear of what others might think. It had taken Wayne a long time to attain that confidence. For some reason, Kelly had always had it.” 

Wayne seems to have confidence before Nicole and Jonas become part of his life, but the experience of raising a transgender child rattles him to the core. He has to find his confidence again, and it takes a long time to do so. Parenting with this shortcoming is a struggle because he believes so strongly that confidence gives mothers and fathers the resolve to do what’s right and necessary even when others disagree. Wayne gets caught up in his fears about what other people will think of him for supporting a transgender person, even if that person is his daughter.

Prior to becoming Nicole’s advocate, Wayne places the beliefs and stereotypes he learned in his childhood above her reality and needs. Some of Wayne’s struggle in this area stems from his belief that families should look and act a certain way, a belief Kelly doesn’t share because her own family didn’t meet many people’s definition of normal. Because Kelly has few preconceived notions about how a family should look or act, she is much quicker to decide that other people’s opinions and judgments of her family don’t matter to her. This helps her have confidence in her decisions to protect Nicole and promote her well-being, even when they are met with opposition and/or danger. Wayne begins to gain this confidence when he sees how his daughter is hurting from harassment at school and realizes that the point of many of his beliefs is to lend a hand to others who need assistance.